Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1987) and Mark Twain (1835-1910)
A Critical Comparison
by
Heribert E. Severing
These are some thoughts on two great authors who, though being children of different times have many things in common.
For
Robert A. Heinlein's biography click here
Mark Twain's Biography
Mark Twain, or what was
his true name, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born in
Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835. He moved to
Hannibal, Missouri, a Mississippi river port, at age
four where he got a public school education.
At age 12, after the death
of his father in 1847, he got an apprenticeship
with two local printers.
In 1851, he started work
for his brother Orion's Hannibal Journal. He
became a journeyman printer in Keokuk, Iowa; New
York City; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and other
cities thereafter.
He worked as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi, eventually, until the Civil War brought an end to travel on the river.
In 1861 he volunteered as a soldier with the Confederate cavalry in an irregular company.
Some months later, he went to the newly created Nevada Territory. He took to silver mining, as did Robert Heinlein, for a short period of time. It was in 1862 when he started work with a newspaper. He became a reporter on the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Nevada. In 1863 he signed his articles with the pseudonym Mark Twain (meaning two fathoms deep).
In 1864 he moved to San Francisco. His tale from the California gold fields, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County became known nationwide.
In 1867 Twain went to NYC, lectured there, and later visited Europe and the Holy Land. The Innocents Abroad appeared in 1869, burlesquing those European cultural aspects that impress American tourists.
In 1870 he married
Olivia Langdon.
From Buffalo, NY, the
couple was soon to move to Hartford, CT. It was
here as well as at Quarry Farm, near Elmira, NY,
in the summer months, where much of Twain's best work
was written in the 1870s and 1880s. Roughing
It (1872) is dealing with his early
adventures as a miner and a journalist. The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) turned out
to be an all-time-great juvenile novel, enjoyed by
youngsters in the nation and all over the world
in the course of the years to come, a novel
reminding adults of how it was being young and strong
at heart.
A Tramp Abroad
(1880) is about a walking trip through the Black
Forest in Germany to the Swiss Alps. The
Prince and the Pauper (1882) dealt with switched
identities in Tudor England. It was a fantasy
novel for children. Life on the Mississippi
(1883) was bringing back his experiences as a river
pilot, comparing it with experiences gained
while visiting the river anew. A Connecticut
Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) is
satirizing oppression in feudal England, using
elements of science fiction for the matter of social
fiction. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
(1884) is considered his masterpiece, being the
sequel to Tom Sawyer.
In 1884 he formed
the publishing firm Charles L. Webster and
Company for his own works as well as other
writers' books. In 1894 an investment in an
automatic typesetting machine led eventually to
the firm's bankruptcy.
Twain's worldwide lecture
tour, and a book based on those travels paid off
his debts. Following the Equator was
published in 1897.
In the following years,
there were growing pessimism and bitterness in
his works as a result of his business reverses.
Worsening things for him were the deaths of his wife
and two daughters later. Pudd'nhead Wilson
(1894) was a novel about miscegenation and
murder, Personal Recollections of Joan of
Arc (1896) was a sentimental biography.
The Man That
Corrupted Hadleyburg (1899) was a
collection of short stories. The War Prayer
(1905) contained philosophical, social, and
political essays. Manuscripts and
autobiographical dictations were to be found in The
Mysterious Stranger.
Things in Common
Both authors were born
in the state of Missouri, Hannibal being
situated about 200 miles east of Kansas City.
Both were involved with the
military voluntarily.
Heinlein decided to be a
Navy officer attending the US Naval Academy in
Annapolis, MD, from 1924 to 1929, and taking to active
service afterwards up to 1934, when he was
discharged due to poor health.
Twain's encounter as
a volunteer with the Confederate cavalry lasted only a
couple of months in 1861, in the first days of
the Civil War.
When Heinlein and
Twain completed their military careers, they were both
26 years old.
In the course of the next years they dealt with different things before finding their definite writing profession. It's quite remarkable that Heinlein as well as Twain took to silver mining for some time.
Twain having been
working with journals as a printer before,
succeeded in getting to writing, as a reporter at the
beginning, while Heinlein, at age 31, made his way
through the backdoor after studies in science,
by means of science fiction, a subdivision of pulp
fiction then, at age 31. His nationwide fame as
a writer other than a genre writer came with his
publishing with the Saturday Evening Post in 1947,
at age 39.
Twain had his first
nationwide-success tale in 1864, just being 29
years old.
Writing novels for young
people, both authors were successful in that
field. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn have
been classic American characters for generation after
generation to grow up ever since.
As Heinlein had a number of
different protagonists in his juvenile fiction,
his heroes are not so well known, but on the whole,
his juveniles are known to many people some of
whom prefer them to his works in the '70s and
'80s.
Mark Twain's A
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
was his closest approach to what is called
science fiction by now. The Prince and the
Pauper has fantasy elements.
Twain wrote about his
travels in 1869 (The Innocents Abroad)
and in 1897 (Following the Equator).
Heinlein wrote about his
travels around the world in 1953 and 1954, but
it was till his death that A Tramp Royale
actually was published in 1992 by Virginia Heinlein.
Things Different
Even though there are some remarkable similarities in the lifelines of Robert A. Heinlein and Mark Twain, there are a lot more differences.
Robert Heinlein had a lifelong unhappy love affair with the military. It was hard for him that he couldn't proceed in rank, that he even had to be discharged from service because of disease. While working at the US Naval Air Experimental Center in Philadelphia during World War II, he tried to regain military rank and uniform, but felt somewhat humilitated on denial. Mark Twain just served a few months with the cavalry in Civil War.
Unlike Mark Twain,
Robert A. Heinlein tended to change his opinion
in the course of the years. At the start of his
writing career he seemed to be a liberal. After his
divorce, being newly wed to Virginia, he turned
out to be very conservative. He didn't mind
McCarthyism, he thought it to be inevitable whilst
there was a worldwide bipolarization between
communism and the free world. You may read about his
thoughts in A Tramp Royale. In the decades to
come, Heinlein proves to be a dedicated follower of
the zeitgeist. Bob Heinlein's writing kept in tune
with times up to the 1980s, from the beginning of the
sexual revolution in the 1960s up to soft-porn-like
writing while in his last years. In the 1960s he
played a role in the development of the counterculture
(Stranger in a Strange Land).
Synopsis
Though both men were
great American authors in their time, and their
lifelines seem somewhat similar at first glance, there
are even more things completely different about
them.
I have tried an
analysis of the two writers with the intention of
giving more critical insights of Robert A.
Heinlein as a man in his
time
The
Robert A. Heinlein Page
Legendary
Science Fiction: RAH
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